Cover Reveal: Samantha Kane INTO THE FIRE!

I mentioned a while ago that I sold a novel to WordFire Press. Since then, I’ve been going through the behind the doors stuff that happens when you sell a book – the conversations, the editing, and the cover. Oh, the cover.

To be honest with you, I can’t remember when or who said it to me, but someone at WordFire mentioned I could commission my own cover art if I wanted to. That idea burned brightly in my brain. I latched onto it and wouldn’t let it go. I spoke with my publisher, Kevin J. Anderson about it, and he said it was true, I could, but he was also wary. I don’t blame him for being so. Every WFP book published has his name on it, his brand, and being a marketing person myself, I understand how important it is to protect such things.

So, we worked together on it. I told him my plan, and he liked it and gave me the green light to see what I could do.

I met Galen years ago at WorldCon. We sat in a large hallway in the convention center doodling back and forth in a notebook in-between her ‘tattooing’ someone’s arm with a pen.

The moment I heard I could commission art for my book cover, I knew it had to be Galen’s art. She has come a long way since we sat on that bench together, and I couldn’t be prouder of her. The art she has created is absolutely amazing, and the idea of having her do the art for this book made so much sense to me. I just hoped it made sense to her, too.

To my astonishment and delight, she accepted. We had a few back and forth conversations about the book and the title character, Samantha Kane. She sent me a ‘preliminary sketch’ that blew my mind. Based on that sketch, Kevin felt as excited as I did, and we proceeded.

Here’s the final art (followed below by the cover with text):

I may have ran around WorldCon showing that image off on my phone. *cough*

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Patrick Hester is a Paladin, an author, blogger and a 2013 Hugo Award Winner. He is also a Hugo Nominated Podcast Producer/Host who lives in Colorado and writes science fiction and fantasy (mostly)...[click to read more]